Graveyard of Empires
by Lost Lacrimae
Summary: REUPLOAD. REWRITE. NEW TITLE. "You're not crazy, Jack. You're not a freak. You're perfect, just the way you are." Her words were what turned him into Gotham's most dangerous criminal. Joker/OC & Crane/OC


**Hey! So, I used to have this story up and it was honestly a hit. It was originally called, "And The Reason Is You" if any of you reading this just happen to remember that story! I neglected it for a long time and then I finally deleted it. I was mad at myself for the direction it was going, even though everyone was enjoying it. But I wasn't enjoying it.**

 **What inspired me to attempt a rewrite? The show Gotham, actually. Along with some Suicide Squad. BUT. Since my original story was intended for Heath Ledger's Joker and Cillian Murphy's Scarecrow, I am keeping it in this category. Anyway... I know how I am ending this story. If successful and wanted, I can try a sequel, but I'm not thinking or worried about that at all now. I just want to write this story better than before.**

 **Here goes. I truly hope you enjoy.**

* * *

 **Graveyard of Empires**

 **August 8, 1992**

The term 'love at first sight' was a cliché, and something he never imagined he'd think, assume, or decide. It was overrated. Overused.

But when he saw her for the first time, well...

He'd been living in the trailer park with _him_ for as long as he could remember. It was a small one, too. Only about forty, forty five trailer homes shoved into too small of a lot.

The Sundman family had moved out the trailer two houses down from him about two weeks ago. Now, here was a new family. There was a dad; he was tall with brown eyes and short, sunny blonde hair. It was almost too bright to be natural. The mom was around 5'7 with short, curly brown hair and faint blue eyes. She was carrying a medium sized box into the trailer home.

Then, out of the car came her. That beautiful abundance of what had to be filled with nothing but pure joy. She was kind of tiny, which was cute. A few inches shorter than the average... was she his age? Hopefully. Her hair was the exact shade as her father's, and it ran halfway down her back. Her eyes were big and brown. A spitting image of her father really, only much more prettier.

She either knew he was watching her and didn't care, or she never noticed at all, but he watched her with piercing eyes. When her parents had finished moving everything inside, the girl had no interest in getting her bedroom set up. She emerged back outside and tended to her bicycle - a banana bike that was the color of mustard yellow.

That thing was beyond ugly.

She was fiddling with the chain that locked the bike up to the stair rail when she heard heavy footsteps approaching her. She looked slightly up to her left to see a boy staring at her with wide eyes. Eyes that were brown and dark. His hair was blonde and handsomely curly.

He was adorable.

"Hi!" She said to him. "Are you my neighbor?"

He turned halfway back and pointed two trailers behind him. "There."

"Cool," she replied. "I'm Lindsay." She introduced.

"Jack." He let out in a tone just above a whisper.

"Jack," she repeated. "How old are you? I'm twelve... I'll be thirteen before Christmas."

Jack nodded. "Thirteen. Fourteen next spring."

"Are you a grade ahead of me then?" Lindsay realized. "That sucks. I don't have any friends here. We moved from the other side of Gotham."

"I guess I'm your first friend then," Jack decided. "Hey, want to hear a joke?"

"Sure." Lindsay stood up from handling the chain.

"A bear walks into a bar," Jack started. "He orders from the bartender, 'I want a glass of beer and... a handful of peanuts'. The bartender says, 'why the big pause?'"

Lindsay just stared at him.

"Get it? Big pause? Big paws? P-a-w-s?" Jack explained.

Now she giggled. "I get it! That's funny!" She let out an honest smile. "You're a real joker, Jack."

* * *

Just a couple of weeks later, Lindsay started her first day at Gotham Junior High School. She rode the bus with Jack, as did a few of the other trailer park kids. When everyone noticed that Lindsay promptly sat with Jack, a few kids on the bus were whispering.

 _"She just sat next to him?"_

 _"He let her sit with him?"_

 _"Jack got a girlfriend or something?"_

 _"No way. Nobody likes Jack."_

 _"That's because Jack doesn't like nobody."_

"I guess I'll see you after school?" Lindsay said to Jack as she received her class schedule.

"Where is your first class?" Jack asked her, looking over her shoulder to skim her schedule. Some of his curls hit Lindsay's right cheek and she began to flare up embarrassingly. "Choir? You sing?" Jack noticed.

Lindsay nervously shrugged.

"Well the choir class is in the auditorium. I'll show you." Jack offered, and began his escort. There were so many students. So. Many. Kids. Teenagers. Lindsay recalled her parents' conversation just a few nights ago.

 _"Gotham general schools are the most populated." Joanna had huffed._

 _"Yeah?" Michael replied in confusion._

 _"That means all the different classes of kids are there. Especially those poor children from the Narrows." Joanna explained._

 _Michael said again. "Yeah?"_

 _"I'm worried about how they'll end up influencing Lindsay."_

 _"She's a good kid. She's not going to end up bad or something. Relax."_

 _"What about that boy she's been playing with?"_

 _"You mean Jack?"_

 _"Yeah. I've heard bad things about him, and his father..."_

"Thank you," Lindsay said to Jack when they made it to the auditorium. "I'll see you later."

"See you." Jack barely said back, watching her enter the auditorium. He felt a small pang of hurt. He started feeling it every day this week and the last. When it was time for Lindsay to go inside for the night. Or when _he_ was home and Jack couldn't go out.

Being away from her felt...

Horrible.

He shook his head quickly and took a quick look at his schedule to find his first class, and took off for the other side of the building.

In the auditorium, it was dark. The only vague lighting was on the stage across the way. Some students had already sat themselves down. What looked like the choir teacher was a lady with a long, blonde braid. She was walking around, appearing frantic.

"Hey."

Startled, Lindsay turned around to face a girl. She was just a couple inches taller than Lindsay, with shoulder length pitch black hair and eyes so blue they were like frozen ice cubes of blueness. _That doesn't even make sense!_ Lindsay scolded herself.

"Do you talk?" The girl asked with a slight snap.

"Y-yeah." Lindsay gulped.

"Good. We're friends now, got it?" The girl decided. "Jade Crane."

"Oh... Lindsay Stark," She introduced. "I'm new."

"We're _all_ new," Jade remarked. "I don't remember you. Were you in the other class at Gotham Elementary?"

"No," Lindsay answered. "I moved from the other side of town."

Jade raised an eye. "What the heck were you thinking?"

"I... what?" Lindsay was at a loss for words.

"Come on then," Jade grabbed Lindsay's shoulders and forced her to turn back around. "By the way, if you ever meet my brother, stay away from him. He's a freak."

"What-? How will I know it's your brother-?" Lindsay questioned.

"He looks like me but he's ugly. Like a scarecrow." Jade described.

"That's not nice," Lindsay remarked as they went up on stage to find two open seats. "What's his name?"

"It's- what the? _Patrick_? You signed up for _choir_?" Jade burst into laughter.

"No!" The green eyed boy known as Patrick groaned. "I didn't pick any electives so they put me in choir."

"Well you're dumb." Jade simply spat as she sat down left of him.

"You're dumb too. You can't sing." Patrick countered. "Who's this?"

"This is Lindsay," Jade held her palm out at her before she flipped her hand and ran it through Lindsay's sunny blonde streaks. "You see this? This is _princess_ material."

"It looks almost white," Patrick noticed. "Is that natural?"

"Yes." Lindsay spoke irritably. Michael was right. People were always going to ask if her "blonde hair so bright it's nearly white" was natural, dyed, or bleached. It was natural, damn it.

 _Oops,_ Lindsay scolded herself again. She wasn't the type to swear.

Jade and Patrick went and engaged in a new conversation. Lindsay looked around at the other students as the choir teacher who named herself as Mrs. Burnett tried to take attendance. Lindsay didn't expect to recognize anyone, though she secretly hoped she would.

She missed her best friend from the other side of town. Now, who knows when they'd see each other again.

Jade jabbed Lindsay to get her attention and laughed. Lindsay winced - this girl really wasn't afraid to be touchy feely at all.

She wondered how Jack was doing.

* * *

The second class was a social studies slash history of sorts. The huge name on the chalkboard read Mr. Johnson. Lindsay noticed a boy who was sat all the way in the back of the room at the desk in the farthest corner. Like he was trying to stay away from everyone else. Maybe he was new too, and was nervous or shy. Lindsay bravely went over and sat at the desk next to him.

"Hi." She waved.

He didn't even look at her as he mumbled, "Hi."

Lindsay was in over her head when Mr. Johnson was reading out the names on the attendance list, especially when he called out the boy she sat next to.

"Jonathan Crane."

When he barely raised his hand, Lindsay nearly fell out of her seat. Crane-? As in Jade's brother? She looked at him as closely as she could. He... he _did_ look like her. His black hair went down to his ears. His face was a little thinner, but he shared the same, icy blue eyes as Jade.

He was kind of cute... why would he be called ugly? Or a scarecrow, even?

Lindsay didn't want him to know right away that she'd met his sister, but she did decide to steal what his sister said. "Hey."

Jonathan ignored her.

"Do you talk?"

Jonathan blinked. "When I want to, yes."

Lindsay grinned. "Good. We're friends now, got it? I'm Lindsay-"

"Lindsay Stark?"

As she turned her attention to the teacher to confirm she was present, Jonathan managed to sneak a look at her. He couldn't bring himself to ever like a girl again. Not since Sherry had laughed at him and said his crush on her was totally dumb, followed by mockery and laughter about that whole ordeal by Jade. But this seemingly too friendly near-white headed girl appeared to have a glow about her.

No. She was probably friends with Sherry and her being nice to him is a part of some joke they thought of. Well he wasn't going to fall for it.

Nope.

Not at all.

How little he knew that as the next few years would go by, he wouldn't fall for the non-existent joke, but he would fall for _her_... badly.

And he wasn't going to be the only one...

* * *

Jack felt as if the first day of school dragged on and on. He didn't want to be here, and he made sure everyone knew it.

During lunch hour, in his case he had third lunch, he hoped to find Lindsay. He spent about half of his lunch period looking for her in the cafeteria, but to his dismay it appeared she didn't have the same lunch. She had either first or second.

There was that rush of hurt again. It made him feel lonely and he hated it.

The final bell rang at the end of the day, and Jack was too quick to escape. He lunged through the school to get to the front entrance, to the outside. He leaped onto the bus, where to his surprise he saw Lindsay sitting in the seat they shared that morning.

She waved eagerly at him. As Jack took his first step towards her - the back of the bus - was when he felt it.

The hurt.

It was gone.

When he took his seat next to her, he grinned. "Did you miss me?"

"I did," she answered. "How was your first day?"

Jack shrugged.

"Me too." She admitted.

"Want to hear a joke?" Jack suddenly offered.

"Sure!"

"What do you call a blonde with two brain cells?"

"A blonde-? Are you making fun of me?" Lindsay accused him.

"Pregnant." He answered.

Lindsay smirked before she playfully hit him on his shoulder. "That's _not_ funny!"


End file.
